Money is changing. Through data-driven innovation, the ways in which money can now be represented, encountered, exchanged, and ultimately designed, is increasingly diverse. However, to our knowledge, there has been little research into how children now experience, interact with, and learn about contemporary, forms of digital money. This exploratory project, in partnership with Natwest, therefore aims to undertake fundamental, qualitative and design-led research with children and their families in Scotland, to understand the secret lives of children’s digital monies. We will explore 1) how children currently interact with (digital) money in their everyday lives and 2) what children think the future of money could look like.

Extending prior work with families on the ‘Secret Lives of Children’s Digital Money’ (Link), this project involves us working directly with Primary Schools in Scotland, to directly engage children in participatory design futuring to shape the design of banking services for children and young people in the future.